Solana Sets Daily Non-Vote Transaction Record at 169.9 Million, Six Days After

Solana SOL$111.07+1.1% processed 169.9 million non-vote transactions on August 4, 2026, a new single-day record for the network, according to Blockworks Analytics. The milestone arrived six days after Anza activated SIMD-0286, which raised the maximum compute units per block from 60 million to 100 million, the largest single throughput expansion in the network's history.

Demand Was Waiting at the Old 60M CU Ceiling

The record was not a surprise to those watching block utilization in the weeks before the upgrade. In the month leading up to SIMD-0286's activation, 11.2% of blocks were already consuming 56 million or more compute units, within striking distance of the prior 60 million cap. That concentration showed production workloads had reached the practical ceiling under the old limit.

SIMD-0286 was authored by Lucas Bruder of Jito JTO$0.565+2.9% and activated at Epoch 1009 on July 29, 2026. It raised only the Max Block Units parameter from 60 million to 100 million, while leaving the per-account writable state limit at 12 million CUs and the maximum block data size unchanged at 100 MB. The decision to keep account-level caps in place preserves the parallel execution properties that let Solana process non-conflicting transactions simultaneously.

The proposal itself acknowledged the network had headroom: "current mainnet traffic is largely not constrained by large block execution times," per SIMD-0286. What it was constrained by was the aggregate block ceiling, not individual transaction complexity.

How the Expanded Blockspace Filled Within Six Days

The path from upgrade activation to record throughput followed a predictable mechanism. Market makers and trading bots running proprietary automated market makers account for a substantial share of Solana's non-vote transaction volume. When the block ceiling lifts, those systems adapt quickly; they are built to use available blockspace rather than leave it idle.

In the first 48 hours after SIMD-0286 activated, P90 priority fees fell 30% and block cap congestion dropped from 12.5% to 0.5%. That fee relief did not suppress activity; it made it less expensive for high-frequency participants to submit more transactions into the expanded space. August 4 also saw the launch of the Western Union Stablecard on Solana (a payments product covering 37 markets), which added payment transaction volume on the same day the throughput record was set.

Solana Compass transaction data tracks the same climb. In the two weeks from July 22 to August 5, daily counts ranged from 114 million to 155 million in the pre-activation window, jumped to 159 million on July 29 (the SIMD-0286 activation day), and hit their highest point on August 4.

The August 4 single-day count extends a trend already visible at the weekly level. In the week ending July 6, Solana's weekly non-vote transaction count crossed 1 billion for the first time, with volume more than doubling from the start of 2026.

Record Volume, Subdued Network Revenue

The fee picture distinguishes the August 4 record from earlier throughput peaks. Q2 2026 network fees totaled $51 million, the weakest quarterly figure since Q3 2023, despite surging transaction counts. The divergence reflects who is driving the volume. Market makers executing on low-margin routes generate many transactions at low individual fees; that is a different revenue profile from the high-priority-fee competition that accompanied memecoin speculation periods.

The writable account cap remaining at 12 million CUs also limits how much of the new capacity benefits use cases where multiple transactions compete to update the same account simultaneously. High-contention slots, including popular trading pairs with concentrated activity, still face the same per-account write ceiling as before. The block limit expansion helps parallel workloads; it does not resolve hot-account congestion, which remains a separate constraint.

SOL's per-block compute limit now stands at 100 million CUs, up 66% from the 60 million ceiling SIMD-0286 replaced. The August 4 record confirms the expanded capacity found real demand almost immediately.